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WNSR to Launch The McFarland Show with Darren and Justin McFarland

BSM Staff
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On Monday, Nashville sports radio listeners will have a brand new afternoon program to listen to. The McFarland Show with Darren and Justin will air 2-4p on Nashville Sports Radio WNSR-AM 560, FM 95.9, FM 107.9 and WNSR.com.

Darren McFarland has been on the air in Nashville for 25 years, including eleven years at 102.5 FM the Game. He was also the Nashville Predators radio studio host since 2013.

Justin McFarland is an award-nominated morning reporter for FOX 17 News who is currently working his second stint at the television station.

“It’s great having two such talented, experienced and wonderful people joining our crew,” WNSR general manager Ted Johnson said. “Darren and Justin will make a great team listeners will gravitate to and enjoy. They’ll be a great complement to our daily lineup.”

Darren McFarland left 102.5 FM the Game in July but will continue to work with the Predators as the co-host of a player radio show with Hal Gill and he will also host the Predators’ Official Podcast.

“Thanks to Ted and (WNSR operations manager) Adam Johnson for this wonderful opportunity to continue my radio career in Nashville, a place where my family and I call home,” Darren McFarland said. “I’m excited to be launching this show with Justin, who I met while working in 1998 on a remote broadcast for WNSR. We’ve been good friends ever since.”

Justin McFarland has been familiar with Nashville since moving their with his family when he was 11. He began his journalism career as a sports reporter for the Tennessee Tribune in Nashville.

“I’m appreciative to both FOX 17 and WNSR Radio for affording me this great opportunity,” Justin McFarland said. “I hope the show will be both entertaining and informative. We want to talk about and engage the listeners not only with the topics of the day, but also have some fun talking about a lot of different topics concerning our great city.”

Amazon, YES Network Discussing Possible Move of Friday’s Yankees Game to YES

BSM Staff
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The New York Yankees, Amazon and YES Network are looking at the posibility of moving the Friday night Yankees-Orioles game from Amazon to YES Network.

The New York Post reports that the situation is “in flux”. The game is scheduled to be on Amazon Prime Video as part of deal that gives the subscription service 21 Yankees broadcasts this season. YES is partly owned by Amazon.

There remains the possibility that Amazon and YES could both broadcast the game. Amazon uses YES’ announcers which means Michael Kay would lead their regular broadcast team regardless of where the game gets broadcast.

Charley Steiner Recalls Story of Yankees Broadcast Offer

BSM Staff
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Charley Steiner has been on the job with the Los Angeles Dodgers for 18 seasons as a play-by-play announcer, longer than his time with ESPN or the New York Yankees.

During an appearance on The Press Box podcast, Steiner re-lived how he got an offer from the New York Yankees in 2001 while announcing Barry Bonds’ chase for home run record in quite the interesting manner.

“I was sitting in Brian Cashman’s office. It was a Sunday night game, it was three or four in the afternoon, and just chatting,” Steiner recalled. “And George (Steinbrenner) walk in to the office. I’d known George since from the time I worked in Cleveland back in the mid-to-late 70s. And George was saying ‘Oh, I heard you on television the other day’, just chatting aimlessly.

“He says to Cashman and says ‘I need to talk to you’, so I said ok it was time to leave. So George leaves the office, and I say to Brian — because 2002 would be the first year for the YES Network — ‘You know, if something is available with this new network’ — because they didn’t even have a name yet — ‘I could be interested’. “

Steiner then said Brian Cashman walked into the broadcast booth with a “I have good news and bad news” approach, which caught the former SportsCenter anchor off guard because he expected no news.

Cashman said “‘The bad news is I told George you might be interested in coming to work for the Yankees. And he told me to stay the f*** out of his business, build me a winner, you have nothing to do with broadcasts. The good news he wants to hire you.’ And so that was how it came to pass,” Steiner recalled. “All the while, I’m doing those games up to and post 9/11 and the Bonds home runs. The Giants call and say ‘Would you be interested in coming out and working with John Miller?’.

“My father was in ill-health at the time, and having grown up in New York — and the offers were identical, but truth be told I’d always been a Dodgers fan — so I decided to work for the Yankees so my dad could hear me in his final years, and he did, and that was how the Yankees part of the story came about.”

Steiner spent the 2002, 2003, and 2004 seasons with the Yankees before joining the Dodgers broadcast booth. Yankees announcer John Sterling reportedly told colleagues how much he disliked working with Steiner, due to his “inaccurate calls” and use of cliches during the broadcast.

YES Network Sees Highest-Rated Yankees Game Since Derek Jeter’s Final Home Game

BSM Staff
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Tuesday night’s broadcast of the Yankees-Blue Jays was the most-viewed YES Network telecast in eight years.

Aaron Judge’s pursuit of Roger Maris’ American League home run record has brought big numbers for the network, peaking at 901,000 total viewers (8:45-9:00p ET) and averaging 708,000 total viewers on Tuesday night. Those numbers are the highest were the highest total for the network since Derek Jeter’s final home game on September 25, 2014. That game averaged 1.2 million total viewers.

YES has averaged at least 600,000 total viewers in each of their last three primetime Yankees games. YES has had 40 games this season that have averaged at least 400,000 total viewers and six games that have averaged at least 500,000 total viewers.

TNT To Replace Dwayne Wade with Jamal Crawford

BSM Staff
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Earlier this month, news broke that Dwyane Wade would be stepping away from his role with TNT’s Tuesday night broadcasts. On Wednesday, we learned who his replacement will be.

Jamal Crawford is set to replace Wade on the TNT’s Tuesday night NBA set according the New York Post. Crawford, 42, is going to join Shaquille O’Neal, Candace Parker and host Adam Lefkoe after 20 years as a player.

TNT declined comment. 

Dennis Eckersley: Don’t Be Afraid to Say What Needs to Be Said

BSM Staff
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Dennis Eckersley has said that when this season concludes for the Boston Red Sox, he will be calling it a career. On Tuesday night, he offered advice to Will Middlebrooks on how to be successful in the TV booth.

Middlebrooks has been in the NESN booth before but this time, with the exit of Eckersley and the season looming, he took a moment to ask for some advice from Eck.

“I’m new here,” Middlebrooks began, “what would make me good at this job?”

Eckersley didn’t have to hesitate before divulging some wisdom.

“Not being afraid to say what needs to be said,” Eckersley said. “That’s probably one of the hardest things to do coming out of the dugout. Once you leave the dugout, you’re not in the dugout anymore. Players have a hard time with it, because this game is not easy and then we get up here and it looks a lot easier up here.”

Eckersley would continue by adding that being live, as a broadcaster, it can be scary but nothing else compares to the feelings he got while playing.

“Be who you are and it’s scary because if you are who you are, you can’t be afraid to be who you are,” Eckersley opined. “Sometimes you feel a little naked up here because, I don’t know, it’s falling off a cliff sometimes. Because you never know, it’s live. This is as close as it gets to playing because you get a little nervous, I love it. that’s why it’s going to be hard to leave, cause there’s nothing that you do in life that gets you going like this.”

Joe Madison Calls Matt Walsh A ‘Jackass’ For Little Mermaid Comments

BNM Staff
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Joe Madison Calls Matt Walsh A ‘Jackass’ For Little Mermaid Comments

Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire recently made comments condemning Disney’s decision to cast Halle Bailey, a black actress, as Ariel in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. Walsh claimed it wasn’t accurate “scientifically” for a mermaid to be black. In turn, SiriusXM host Joe Madison called Walsh a “jackass”, among other things, for his comments.

“This is just my perspective,” Madison said. “I’ll be honest with you. Listen to this asshole. I mean listen to him. This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard as it relates to a fictional character. He actually talks like mermaids exist.”

Madison then played the clip of Walsh’s comments, where he argued “from a scientific perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have someone with darker skin who lives deep in the ocean” before saying, for accuracy’s sake, the mermaid should be translucent. He then added, “that would actually be the version of The Little Mermaid that I would watch”.

“‘From a scientific perspective, can we all agree about mermaids?’…what the f*** is scientific about a mermaid?”, Madison shouted. “I’m just gonna get the $20 out and put it in the swear jar. ‘From a scientific perspective, I’m getting ready to describe to you what a mermaid looks like’. This is what he’s getting ready to do! If you’ve seen a mermaid, call me! Ok!”

Madison continued to be dumbfounded by the statement.

“Disney ought to sue his ass. Who is this guy? Daily Wire? Are you freaking kidding me? Mickey Mouse should be gray! Give me a break! Give me a break! ‘Oh, by the way, scientifically, if you’re in the deep sea, you should be translucent’. Huh? Tell that to the clownfish. I used to have an aquarium. Tell that to the octopus that can change f***ing colors…never mind. I’ll be getting dollars in this swear jar.

“Disney, what you should really do is have a mermaid where you can see her freaking brains and her skeleton. ‘Oh, by the way, that’s the Little Mermaid film I’ll watch’. God. You keep giving out names. He’s a jackass, he’s a troll. No. He’s an asshole. Give me a break! My god!”

Buffalo Sabres Will Travel TV Broadcasters for First Time Since Pandemic

BSM Staff
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The Buffalo Sabres revealed they will travel play-by-play announcer Dan Dunleavy and analyst Rob Ray to the majority of the team’s road games this season.

The announcement was made by Chrisanne Bellas, vice president of media and content for the Sabres. She said that the broadcast crew will be traveling for the MSG Network telecasts. The only games the crew won’t travel for are the ones on the West Coast. Dunleavy and Ray will do those games from the studio.

The Sabres broadcasters didn’t travel to road games during the Covid-19 pandemic but the NHL allowed teams to choose to travel last season.

Stephen A. Smith: ‘I Usually Get My Way’ With ESPN

BSM Staff
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Stephen A. Smith knows what his value is in Bristol. He was on 94.7 The Block on Wednesday morning to promote his new podcast Know Mercy, which is being produced by The Block’s parent company, Audacy.

During the conversation, Block morning host Miss Jones asked Smith about how he sees his on value in the media world. Smith answered that he began to better understand what his place in the business was and what it could be in 2009 when ESPN declined to renew his first contract with the network.

“Popularity wasn’t my name in the streets, somebody saying ‘Stephen A!’ Popularity wasn’t myself on billboards. Popularity was the ratings and the revenue I brought in, and how I was able to get that information and thereby monetize myself, me recognizing how much I was truly worth rather than using popularity to determine that. And once I had that informational muscle to support what I believed about myself, suddenly I sat up there and I changed my attitude, not just because of what I learned about me, but that same knowledge I learned about my bosses.”

Smith went on to say that he changed his approach and focused not on being right, but instead on what he could do to make the network more money. Once the network saw that was his goal, he found it easier to accomplish the goals he had for his career.

Jones asked what that meant for disagreements between he and his bosses at ESPN.

“I’m a businessman,” Stephen A. Smith said. “You come to me and you tell me that something is affecting the bottom line, I’m all ears. Because we’re in this together, and it’s a business relationship and I understand that. That doesn’t mean you own my thinking. That doesn’t mean I’m going to march lock-step with you 100 percent of the time.”

He added that changing his thinking and gaining a true understanding of his value to the network helped him in those situations where he may say something ESPN isn’t fully on board with. Those conversations are not him on the receiving side of a lecture anymore.

“Of course, I have to listen and to some degree capitulate to what they want. But I usually get my way. They usually listen to me. Because they trust me, and they trust that I’m thinking about them as much as I’m thinking about myself when it comes to business. That’s respect that I hope I have with anybody I choose to do business with because I never think about just myself as I’m conducting business.”

Stephen A. Smith will drop the first episode of Know Mercy on Monday, September 26. New episodes will premier every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Monday Night Football Sees Largest Week 3 Audience In ESPN History

BSM Staff
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Monday Night Football Sees Largest Week 3 Audience In ESPN History

Monday Night Football has continued to break records for ESPN, and this week’s broadcast was no different as the game between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants featured an audience of 19.342 million viewers.

It marks the best week three broadcast in ESPN’s 17-year history of broadcasting Monday Night Football, and is the fourth highest rating in that same time period.

ESPN’s 19.3 million viewers for Cowboys versus Giants was an 11% increase over last year’s week three game that featured the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears.

Two of the network’s top five most-watched games have come this season, as Russell Wilson’s return to Seattle with the Denver Broncos was the fourth highest audience in Monday Night Football on ESPN history. That game saw viewership at 19.845 million.

Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli also drew 1.4 million viewers this week. Through the first two episodes of the alternate broadcast, it’s audience has increased by 15%.

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